Transit bus, train crash in Pennsylvania; at least 10 hurt

EVANS CITY, Pa. (AP) — A rural transit bus carrying passengers to a program that offers services for people with developmental disabilities and a freight train crashed at an unmarked railroad crossing Friday morning, injuring at least 10 people.

Video from local TV helicopters suggested that the small bus may have hit the train and then come to rest about 20 feet away. The bus was upright on an embankment and had front-end damage. Police were investigating whether dense morning fog contributed to the crash.

The crash occurred in Evans City, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, at about 8:10 a.m. Friday. Eleven people, including the driver, were on the bus, and at least 10 were being taken to hospitals, officials said.

Three men and a woman were being treated in the Allegheny General Hospital emergency room in Pittsburgh, said hospital spokesman Dan Laurent. The men were 35, 38 and 75 years old, and the woman’s age was not immediately available.

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Police said the Butler Area Rural Transit bus was on its way to a program known as Lifesteps.

A woman who identified herself as the granddaughter of a 90-year-old woman on the bus told WPXI-TV that her grandmother was headed to geriatric care program at Lifesteps. The woman said the bus takes adult patients of all ages to the facility for a variety of programs.

A Lifesteps official did not immediately return a call for comment, but the facility’s website said it is a nonprofit that has operated since 1923. Lifesteps “services for children, families, adults with special needs and seniors are designed to encourage growth, independence, confidence and dignity,” the website said.

The transit agency’s website indicates it partners with the Alliance For Nonprofit Resources, a social service agency based in the county seat of Butler, to provide reduced-fee transportation for people with disabilities. Neither agency immediately returned calls Friday.

The transit agency’s website said it operates 17 wheelchair-accessible buses that make about 300 trips a day, six days a week.